From a Synesthete, with Love
by The Fiercesomest Dragon Ever
Summary: Oneshots exploring Canaan's heightened form of synesthesia.
1. Glass bead

1. Glass bead

Canaan perched on the ledge atop her Shanghai hideaway, unarmed for once. The mellow sunset played on her senses like a cello, warmed her like a hot drink, rich and strong and easy for her to let slide into the background. Sometimes she came up here to work a job, take down a target; sometimes she came up to think, but not this time. Not really.

Canaan closed her eyes, shutting off only one of the many channels that poured information into her. She could still see in effect—the sounds and smells of the city, the feel of the autumn air and the gentle heat of the fading sun painted a picture she didn't need visual input to understand. Closing her eyes just focused her a little more. She smiled and rolled a clear glass bead back and forth in her hand with her thumb. It was large for a bead, bigger than most bullets, and very smooth. Smooth and cool. Like chocolate.

Where had she even gotten it? She put it almost to her lips and inhaled deeply. Ghosts of scents—street dirt, fish stands, salt and sweat—all tickled her memory. There was an orange feeling too. Maria? The day they'd been out on the town? Had that been it?

Not that it was terribly important to know. It was still a pleasant weight in her hand. A good taste in her mouth. Cool chocolate, straight from the fridge on a hot day.

She savored it- the evening, the bead, the calm time between jobs- while the sunset's music dimmed down to a gentle, maroon colored hum.


	2. Puddles

Puddles stood like crystal, filling every pothole that marred the beat-up asphalt. Canaan gazed at them longingly. But she didn't move from her perch on the back of the transport truck.

The truck had been stopped for a while—a road had washed out up ahead, or something, but she couldn't care less about why they were stopped. Right now, her entire focus, all her being, was bent towards the shinning spots in the road. "Siam," she said.

His chuckle tickled her sensitive ears and his rough hand reached and messed up her hair. She tolerated the attention, waiting. At last, his voice came. "Go for it, kid."

She leapt like a flash, out of the truck, tennis shoes pounding hard on the pavement. Everything was a blur—the dense foliage flanking the road, the sharp chirrups of bugs and birds, the chink and drag of shovels and gravel farther down the road—everything shoved to the periphery but what she needed to accomplish her goal.

Every splash was a rainbow ring in her ears, her shoes in and out before they could even get wet, scattering water like rain, like silver, music in her ears, in her mouth, at her fingertips. Her muscles sang, assuring her she could fly, and she dove into a series of flips that brought her tumbling, breathless, back to the transport truck. Every pothole within fifty yards shivered with ripples, and Canaan sat, breathing hard but otherwise as dry and composed as if nothing had ever happened.

Or not. She felt Saim lean over and tug her pantleg. "One of 'em got you."

Canaan looked down and saw the orange-silver feeling spot on her cuff. Then she looked back at the pools in the road, still not quite settled from her attack. She asked, "Is the road fixed yet?"

"Nope." She could feel Siam's warmth, even in the humidity. She could hear his heartbeat. Feel the smile he had on his face. But she was focused. Waiting. Watching the now-smooth surface of the puddles and listening. Siam's voice finally came. "Take two. Go."


	3. Magazine

Canaan kicked her feet up on the windowsill. It was hot and muggy tonight. Not unusual, but worth noting. Worth taking her pistol apart again to clean it, she thought. Her hands took to the job mechanically, shucking out the magazine, sliding the barrel off. Even the metal was warm. Solid and colorless, though. No two ways about it. She liked that.

The cadence of the steps on the stairs outside her hole-in-the-wall home base gave her a picture of their owner before she ever got to the door. Short steps, heels. Pfft. That narrowed it down by itself. Long hair was a bonus, and she was carrying something. Paper, maybe? Canaan kept her ears perked while her hands worked. The metal was like motor oil—it smelled slick, dirty and clean at the same time.

The door opened. Canaan didn't look up. "News?" she asked and ran a narrow brush through the barrel of her dissembled weapon.

"No. Your package came, though," the elegant Natsume-san shut the door behind her and walked to Canaan's side.

Green, she smelled. Canaan paused, unscrewing her bottle of solvent. Raised heartbeat. Annoyed, probably at having to take all those stairs in heels. Or at having to come up at all. Canaan knew her abilities made the older woman edgy. She could sense it in the way she breathed around her. Nothing to worry about, though. Natsume was holding the package out for her to take, but Canaan ignored it. "Just put it on the bed."

"You do realize I'm not your personal errand runner," Natsume Yuri did as Canaan had directed. "How's your progress?"

"Not too dirty," she wiped solvent on her pantleg. There it was—green again. And that prickly sensation in her ear. Definitely annoyed. Canaan could all but feel her esteemed contact's blood pressure rising. Could anyone do that? Sense blood pressure rising? She brushed the slide one more time. People were interesting.

"Well then," Nastume Yuri said, brisk and sharp, like the high keys on a piano, "Keep us informed."

When Canaan couldn't feel the vibrations of her footsteps on the stairs anymore, she dropped her work on the desk and got up to retrieve the package from her bed. It was a large envelope, really, the kind with bubble wrap built in and a long address tag on the front. It was light and had a sheen to it. Shimmery. Foreign.

Inside was a magazine. The front cover had so many colors and characters it made Canaan motion sick, looking at it. She frowned, went to her desk, and clicked on her lamp while she scanned the table of contents.

Bold, short characters. A red and yellow swirl of words, like two paints stirred in the same can, with a splatter of purple from one that stood out in italics. She made a face, tasting dust and tomato soup and hearing a ringing in her ears as she traced her finger down the glossy page. It took time, sifting through the mess of colors and sensations for the right section.

A waterfall of orange and pastel green and cinnamon assailed her senses. Characters seemed uncomfortable, awkward, angry, happy, silly. Their shapes and forms spoke volumes about their personalities, preferences, tastes. Shouldn't that one be green to match the rest of the word? Some words she couldn't decipher at all—either because her Japanese was worse than she thought or the word just got swallowed up in the rainbow smear of paragraphs and pictures. It was like drowning. Drowning in a sea of color and words when all she wanted was to find a stupid article.

There. Ha. There was the name she was looking for. She folded the page over and fished in her bag for her combat knife. Osawa Maria. How could she not have seen it? And with a picture of her smiling friend at the start of the article. A black and white photo, even. Ugh.

Carefully, carefully, she cut out the pictures her friend had taken. Actually reading the article was a lost cause. Still, she got that warm feeling, knowing her friend was doing alright, taking pictures, seeing the world. Safe, probably. At least relatively so, anyway.

Canaan put her knife away and folded the pictures up for now, making a mental note to invest in a few thumbtacks in the near future. Then she kicked her feet back up on the sill and leaned back in her chair, resuming her previous task.

It was still hot and muggy. Time to put things back together. The dirty-clean feeling and the smooth, hard metal of her weapon were a break after the magazine.

Magazine. Huh. Words were funny. She slid her gun's back in with a satisfying 'snick' and decided to call it a night.


End file.
